Those who face the wall, but are in the Nascent Soul stage.

Chapter 450, "Poetry Clouds"
Li Bai repeatedly collected Luo Qing's body, but the body soon spread out again. However, he did not feel tired at all. Instead, he repeated the work over and over again, always keeping Luo Qing in a minimum human form.

To be buried in the earth is the best way to ensure peace. According to human custom, he should at least try to take Luo Qing out and bury him in the earth.

The slow fog obscures the years, and so much time has passed.

The higher-dimensional Li Bai was contemplating something about dark energy.

Dark energy has a very special place in the universe. On the one hand, it accounts for 68.3% of the total mass-energy of the universe, and on the other hand, no one can utilize so much energy.

Whether it's a god-level civilization or a non-god-level civilization, they are all helpless against this dark energy.

Even an energy god like Li Bai could hardly command any dark energy.

This cosmic civilization, which is based on the dark forest theory, has always existed within the 5% of observable matter. Dark matter civilizations are extremely rare, and dark energy civilizations are completely nonexistent.

Dark energy is not affected by any of the fundamental forces of gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, or strong nuclear force, nor does it react with any observable matter. Instead, it acts only on space itself and is evenly distributed throughout every space. The most distinctive feature of dark energy is that it causes space itself to expand continuously.

As long as dark energy exists in a space, it will expand indefinitely.

This is also why the distance between galaxies is getting farther and farther. It's not that the galaxies themselves are moving, but that the space between galaxies is constantly expanding under the influence of dark energy, and because the expansion speed of space is greater than the speed of light.

In the future, with the universe expanding infinitely, the distances between galaxies will be incredibly vast, extending beyond the three-dimensional light cone. At that time, civilizations within this galaxy will never be able to leave it; the entire observable universe will be contained within this galaxy.

If the expansion caused by dark energy continues, the local galaxy will gradually expand and spread to infinity. Assuming that the solar system still exists at that time, life within the solar system will only see endless darkness.

At that time, this star system will be the entirety of the observable universe.

The gravity of observable matter is no match for the 68.3% dark energy, and the universe will die in infinite expansion, eventually ending up with each elementary particle forming its own separate observable universe.

Ultimately, all civilizations will perish in this expansionary movement.

Whether it's a two-dimensional foil or vacuum decay, these weapons that structurally destroy the universe and expand at the speed of light will never be able to destroy the universe—the universe is infinite.

This is the future of the universe formed under the dominance of dark energy, a future that terrifies the gods, because one day the universe will expand to form a beyond that which even the speed of eleven-dimensional light cannot reach. At that time, every god will be trapped in his own eleven-dimensional light cone, eternally shrouded in darkness.

The beautiful return of Poincaré will remain an unattainable dream.

It was precisely based on this fear that the gods of the Bright Ocean responded to the four cosmic calls of the Risk Eliminator Civilization [Stop Thinking], the Zeroer Civilization [Return Movement], the God Civilization [Light Oceanism], and the Blue Shift Civilization [Cosmic Blue Shift], launching a war of reckoning against thinkers and their henchmen, the Black Forest God.

Li Bai soon discovered that not only the slow fog zone, but also the interior of the dead line contained a large amount of dark energy. However, due to the infinite curvature inside the dead line, the negative pressure effect of the dark energy could not act on this infinitely curved space.

In Li Bai's understanding, only top-level rule gods at the level of risk avoiders can drive, transform, and utilize dark energy; even the singularity god might not be able to do it.

During his recent time rewind, he noticed that every time the scene was about to appear when Luo Qing was fighting his main enemy, it would instantly dissipate, making it impossible for Li Bai to see the face of the dark figure clearly.

But recalling the scene of him using almost endless dark energy to directly clash with Luo Qing, Li Bai seemed to realize what kind of existence that dark shadow was.

After an unknown amount of time, the speed of light in the slow fog had increased to about one centimeter per second. At the same time, the "corpses" of those high-dimensional energy gods had almost completely dissipated.

This means that the speed of light inside the diffuse bubble will remain constant at about one centimeter per second.

Moreover, as the dead line spreads inward, it will reduce the speed of light within this slow fog to an extremely low level again, possibly down to one nanometer per second or even lower.

Those who remain here will only return to slumber.

Li Bai was naturally unwilling to wait to die here.

He carried the eleven-dimensional immortal sword on his back, gathered up Luo Qing's corpse, and with Luo Qing's dead [Qing Sword], he explored the space inside the slow mist bubble step by step until it was completely clear.

There are a total of 673 corpses of high-dimensional energy gods here. The direct cause of death for the vast majority of these energy gods was that their high-dimensional energy bodies were shattered by a sword aura that tore apart the death line.

Li Bai had seen it in the flashback: Luo Qing had once used a Celestial-level Azure Cloud Sword Formation, walking easily with the steps of a mortal through the death line, hunting down those energy gods who were besieging him.

In other words, all 673 energy gods were killed by Luo Qing.

During the battle, Luo Qing deliberately distanced himself from Li Bai to prevent the stationary Li Bai from being affected by the aftershocks of the battle, and Li Bai was completely unaware of this.

Li Bai also discovered that, judging from the way these energy gods died, it didn't seem to be very difficult for Luo Qing to deal with them alone. The key enemy was the black shadow that couldn't be materialized by rewinding time.

Li Bai burned another piece of his natal high-dimensional paper. This time, he avoided seeing the true face of the black shadow, but instead recreated the scene of the surrounding space and fixed his perspective on Luo Qing, trying to understand the battle indirectly.

As soon as this being who controlled dark energy intervened, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse. In an instant, Luo Qing was plunged into a desperate situation. His natal immortal sword shattered, and his entire body was almost crushed by the endless dark energy, annihilating all his spiritual power. His spiritual sword and nascent soul were completely destroyed in this direct attack that was comparable to the universe.

There was no probing, no dialogue, no entanglement, no scheming, and no hesitation between the two sides.

After identifying Luo Qing as the enemy, the opponent took advantage of Luo Qing's inability to contend with its power level and launched an attack with all its might. With the power of almost the entire universe, it crushed all immortal techniques, formations, spiritual treasures, nascent souls, immortal bodies, true spirits, quantum states, photon states, and three-dimensional macro states. In every Planck timescale and every Planck spacescale, it completed this 'killing Qing' process that lasted for thousands of hours.

Even though Luo Qing resisted with the Dao of Time during this period, his Dao of Time only grew from 42 minutes to several hours. Under the time expansion effect at the death limit scale, this process of "killing the Qing" that lasted for thousands of hours was almost "infinite".

In every Planck timeline, Luo Qing is blasted to death.

Luo Qing in every timeline is being baptized by that endless dark energy.

Until the end.

Combining the third round of retrospection, Li Bai's expression became somewhat dazed.

"It's the universe..."

He finally learned the truth.

It was the universe itself that made the move. The universe used its dark energy, which accounted for 67.3% of its total mass energy, to pierce through the immortal body of this Nascent Soul cultivator while the opponent was trapped within the death line.

He recalled the rumors about the 'Thinker' among the Risk Takers, and also remembered Wang Bo's unusual behavior of going beyond the observable universe, and finally realized the truth belatedly.

Throughout the entire "killing of Qing", neither the cosmic will nor the energy gods responsible for restraining Luo Qing paid any attention to him, a static god who remained motionless. Luo Qing, who could move freely within the death zone, became the target of all the gods.

Gaowei Li Bai could only carry each of the free particles that made up Luo Qing's corpse to the edge of the slow fog.

One more step forward and you'll reach the dead line, which is nearly a light-year thick.

Gao Wei Li Bai stopped in his tracks. He knew that if he took another step, he would fall into a state of complete stillness again. Of course, he was unwilling to wait for billions of years in the slow fog.

The road is hard! The road is hard! So many forks in the road, where am I now?
"There must be a way to move within the death zone... otherwise, how did those energy gods killed by Luo Qing manage to do it?"

"Wait, dark energy!" Gao Wei Li Bai suddenly realized the key point. He then studied the remains of the dead energy gods for a while and finally figured out how these energy gods were able to move in the dead zone.

These energy gods revealed their true forms within the death line, then froze in place. Immediately afterwards, the will of the universe... or rather, the thinker, descended and directly used dark energy to completely cover this enormous death line.

Subsequently, under the intimidation of the thinkers, these Black Forest Energy Gods actively absorbed and assimilated a large amount of dark energy, refining it into a part of their higher-dimensional energy body.

Then, by utilizing the negative pressure effect of dark energy, controllable spatial expansion was achieved in the infinitely curvature dead line, and this expansion method can be regarded as movement!
But this is tantamount to suicide.

The negative pressure effect of dark energy will also cause the high-dimensional energy core of the energy god to spread uncontrollably and disintegrate during long-term expansion, eventually becoming unbalanced and broken, with countless high-dimensional energies being reduced to thermal energy and dissipating.

All high-dimensional energy construction methods, including eddies, parallelism, crystals, aggregation, coiling, polarization, flocculation, radiation, precipitation, and mirroring, are susceptible to the spread of this negative pressure effect.

In other words, these energy gods, at the cost of their own inevitable death, absorbed a large amount of dark energy in exchange for the ability to move on the brink of death, and participated in the encirclement and killing of Luo Qing.

"That's right. Whether it's the Star Gods or the other Black Forest Gods, the only thing that can make the Black Forest Gods suppress their 'cleansing instinct' and unite is the universe itself..."

Gao Wei Li Bai remained silent for a moment.

In any case, he did find a way to move within the dead end.

Do you want to go out?

Gao Weili hesitated for a moment, then closed his eyes.

A large amount of dark energy was absorbed by the "paper field," and the originally pure white high-dimensional energy field became gray and almost invisible. Nearly 10,000 sheets of paper filled with various "art," "poems," "arrays," and "talismans" began to spread uncontrollably.

In just a moment, Gaowei Li Bai felt himself collapsing.

The negative pressure effect of dark energy renders it immune to all of the energy god's means of controlling energy.

Based on the rate of his body expansion, he can live for at most twenty or thirty years.

Morning fungi don't know Hui Shuo, worms don't know Spring and Autumn.

Twenty or thirty years is enough, since there is no concept of time inside the death line. Even if he dies, he will die after he has escaped the death line and lived a carefree life for several decades.

It's a pity that his ultimate artistic vision has not yet been realized.

Li Bai took a deep breath of dark energy, took a step forward while holding Luo Qing, and disappeared into the death line.

The moment Luo Qing's body disappeared into the death zone, its dissipation also stopped. With the help of the negative pressure effect of the dark energy in the higher-dimensional body, Li Bai struggled to walk through this death zone where the speed of light was zero.

He drove in and condensed his high-dimensional energy into a thin shield that enveloped the two of them. The artistic runes of the Poetic Civilization flowed on the surface of the shield, but were suppressed by the power of time of the Dead Line, leaving only a faint glow, like a candle flickering in the wind.

"Hold on a little longer," Li Bai said calmly, though it was unclear who he was speaking to.

“Maybe after you get out, you can go back to your hometown,” Gao Weili Bai continued.

"Remember to erect a monument for me in your hometown, with the inscription: The Tomb of the Poet Immortal Li Bai."

"In your next life, remember to come back to this universe with a higher level of cultivation."

"Or call over the best fighter from your hometown and save this doomed universe."

The speed of the high-dimensional Li Bai is not fast, with a movement speed of about one meter per second, which is just equivalent to the walking speed of a human. At this speed, it would take about 2.16 million years to cross the dead line that is one light-year thick to reach the outside world.

Fortunately, it wasn't too long.

But after walking for only a few hours, a large area of ​​light suddenly appeared ahead, which made Li Bai immediately realize that something was wrong. How could there be white light in this dead zone where the speed of light is zero?
But Li Bai quickly realized that the light was actually the energy gods that Luo Qing had failed to kill. These uniformly dark energy gods were also enveloped in dark energy. The light that Li Bai saw was caused by the photons spreading in front of him under the negative pressure of the dark energy.

These energy gods of the Dark Forest faction, despite already possessing the ability to leave the Death Line, would rather remain within this pitch-black sphere with a radius of one light-year, eking out billions of years of existence than leave, because their long divine lives would quickly dissipate and they would die under the negative pressure of dark energy.

Survival is the first necessity of civilization.

This fundamental axiom of the universe also applies to god-like civilizations.

Li Bai, the new energy god who voluntarily enveloped dark matter and walked into the brink of death, aroused the interest of the gods.

Originally, Li Bai could have waited for the death line to spread into a slow fog over hundreds of billions of years, and then left this place intact, which was almost what these Black Forest Gods dreamed of.

But the gods' interest vanished the moment they saw the approaching deity. Although they did not recognize Li Bai, they recognized Luo Qing's corpse and were immediately filled with fear. However, this fear transformed into resentment upon realizing that Luo Qing was dead.

One wave of resentment and malice enveloped Li Bai.

"There are too many, they're not easy to fight."

Gao Wei Li Bai sighed, and the eleven-dimensional immortal sword floated into his hand.

He carried Luo Qing on his back, a faint divine light shining in his eyes.

Then the god of poetry walked towards the massive black forest light membrane.

One of the beams of light was particularly dazzling. It was not an energy god, but a rule god who was also trapped in the death line. Unlike the "Three Thousand Feet" singularity god, this was a gravity god.

Given that its black hole-like gravitational effects covered an area of ​​90,000 li (approximately 45,000 kilometers), Li Bai named it "Nine Thousand Li".

Under the call of "Nine Thousand Miles", the energy gods became restless and gathered in greater and greater numbers. In the end, about 419 Black Forest energy gods stood opposite Li Bai along with this gravity god.

"Halt! Are you the stubborn god of light, or a follower of the thinkers?" the god of gravity roared.

"Is there any difference?" Gao Weili Bai continued forward.

"The former dies, the latter lives!" Gravity God took a step forward, and infinite gravity, carrying dark energy, covered Li Bai.

Li Bai nodded, then straightened up, his voice carrying dark energy that swept across the entire Death Line.

"I am the God of Light and Ocean, an artist, the enemy of the Star God, Luo Qing's accomplice, the remnant of the immortal cultivation, and the greatest poet in Chinese history."

Li Bai slowly raised his head, his eyes flashing with divine light.

You can also call me... Li Bai.

(End of this chapter)